iCloud cost pegged at $25 per year, all 4 major labels signed | Hacker News Reader

iCloud cost pegged at $25 per year, all 4 major labels signed

arstechnica.com

19 pointsssclafani17 comments

I'm betting this "just" buys you the ability to sync all your music (and pretty much everything else that can go on your iphone) to every device you have over the air.

I'm already spending that 30 bucks on Pandora One and I'm not sure the added burden of having to maintain and manage a music library is something I'm up for anymore. I'd rather just stream some semi-random music in the background and go see some good live shows.

I'm in the same boat. I'm very happy with the unlimited streaming model of rd.io (and Netflix) and not very interested in a service that makes it slightly more convenient for me to move big media files around and pay $9 a pop to "own" a digital copy of an album.

$25 a year is certainly in the ballpark of acceptable yearly subscription fee, but i'm not convinced about the actual product here..

i don't think i'd see a use from it, in the same way mobile me hasn't been of much interest.. but then again, i could say the same about a lot of apple products, and they're fairly successful.

then again, i don't think i am (or most of HN demographic are) the target here.

If the service is indeed $25 a year, and lets you listen to unlimited amounts of music, than this is a gamebreaker and would stop music piracy in its tracks.

Think about it - this used to be the cost of a single CD! Netflix, by comparison, charges $108/year for its offering.

More details about what the $25/year gets you is needed before one can make a definitive judgement.

I think the $25 per year is for access to the cloud service. You'll still have to buy your tracks.

On the surface $25/year seems too low to cover a music subscription service but there are about 140 million iOS devices out there and probably 50 million Macs? If 50% of them were to signup for iCloud and pay $25/year with 70% going to the labels/publishers they would make about $1.7 billion dollars. The entire digital music market was $2.2B in 2010. It's definitely in the ballpark to replace existing iTunes music sales. Apple may have sold the labels/publishers on the idea that a low cost service that gives people what they really want, unlimited access to endless amounts of music, is viable if it's priced low enough. It would probably turn a lot of career pirates into paying customers.

You're probably mostly double counting, unless that's $25/year/device - mac users generally have iOS devices and may well have multiple iOS gadgets accumulated over the years. (There are a lot of iPhone users who don't use a mac, but not the other way around.)

ah, my understanding of icloud was that it is a cloud based locker for storing itunes purchases, and syncing across all devices linked with the account. no actual content included..

if however you're right, $25 a year for an unlimited music library.. that would be game changing indeed. it would basically end the need to pirate, certainly.

What would be great is if iCloud is part of the long-rumored iOS 5 wireless syncing and updating for iPhones/iPads/iPods. One of the best things about my Android phone is that if I have a problem or want to mess around I don't need physical access to my computer to reload everything. While some apps, like Plants v. Zombies, are limited to WiFi download only, most are more than happy to use 3G.

Even if it doesn't include apps at launch, I think iCloud rather than iTunes gives Apple the flexibility to add whatever type of data they want in the future.

I'm not exactly sure I'd feel comfortable funneling a chunk of that $25 a year to record labels for the right to store my music in the cloud... Also, I stopped maintaining my own "library" of music months ago and have resorted to basically YouTube + unlimited subscription music service.

Concept of "library" should be dead.

Is this $25 per year to stream music I already own to myself?

We don’t know but it’s probable (and also in line with what one would pay for Amazon’s service†, depending on how much music you can upload).

†You can get up to 20GB for free from Amazon but I think we all know that Apple doesn’t do free. I expect a much more generous limit for those $25 and maybe a trial period but no free service.

What the hell exactly costs $25/year. I've been hearing that number for some time, but no one seems to indicate what it's for.

I'm paying $25 a year for an online drive? That's unlimited? I'm impressed if so.

The price isn't really that special. It's in-line with what people expect Google to charge and Amazon charges around the same amount (Amazon breaks it down by space used and charges $1 per Gigabyte). But both Amazon and Google offer unlimited access.

Apple's advantage is they have the labels on their side and (it is believed) they'll be able to offer your collection without forcing you to upload it. As someone who just spent 9 days uploading his music collection to Google Music I can see the appeal of that.

(For the record it ACTUALLY took 9 days. That isn't exaggeration for effect on my part)

One plausible scenario is that you have to upload all your non-iTMS while your iTMS music can be streamed right from the start. Well, that’s at least the minimal required scenario to make this service attractive when compared to Google’s and Amazon’s services. Apple gets extra points if you can immediately stream all the music in your library – no matter its source – if it is also available in the iTMS. (That would, by the way, also save them space and bandwidth and make it possible for them to be pretty competitive.)

My guess is that it’s either unlimited or has a pretty high limit. Google’s service is currently capped at 20,000 songs†, Amazon’s free service has space merely for a few thousand songs (5GB or 20GB if you purchase an album from Amazon MP3).

Paying $30/year (after buying an album and getting the 20GB bump) gets you altogether 50GB of Amazon Cloud Drive space. That would be my minimum expectation for Apple’s service, too. (I would still be disappointed. 50GB still fit my current music library – but for how long?) A 20,000 song limit (that’s about 160GB assuming 3:30 long 256kBit/s AAC files∆) would be more reasonable and at least be much cheaper than Amazon’s service (if you go with Amazon, 100GB cost you $80, 200GB cost you $180).

It’s also possible that those $25 include some or all services that are currently part of MobileMe (iDisk, email, calendar and other syncing, …).

†It’s currently free and requires an invitation but might be no more after it is out of beta. Comparisons with Google Music are at this point in time moot.

∆Apple wouldn’t actually need all that space and the associated bandwidth. First of all, not all people have 160GB music collections. Also, all music bought from the iTMS (and maybe all music available on the iTMS depending how the service will work in the end) doesn’t have to be uploaded and only one copy of it has to be saved. I have 20GB of music bought in the iTMS and 20GB of ripped music, I would only need 20GB of space.

It's worth bearing in mind that Amazon's service has unlimited storage for music you purchase from Amazon. Purchases there don't count against your space allowance.

So for new music purchases Amazon is pretty tempting to me even if I intend to move the files to one of the other services at some point. Lifetime re-downloading is a nice perk.

Ah, ok, that’s good to know. If that’s the case than I would be disappointed about anything below 50GB for my non-iTMS music and would very much expect no limit on iTMS music and maybe a 20,000 or so limit for non-iTMS music.

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